Reciprocity Read online

  “Oh,” Jurgen said helpfully. He rolled over to his side and coughed and spit out another couple of teeth. “She got the drop on me.”

  “Who?”

  “Your little friend, that’s who, but she wasn’t dressed like no church mouse.” He got up on his knees and held his head. Everything he said sounded sloppy and wet. “You keep some company. Got any water?”

  “All I got is half a flask of gin, and you don’t want that right now. Think, Jurgen. Tell me what happened. Seconds count.”

  “Uh. We was coming out the back door, on account of Lewis parked his ‘thopter back here. I saw a fella standing over there, leaning against the fence, having a smoke and watching the back door, but he weren’t coming for us. I was eyeballing him and I heard something up there”—he pointed with his chin to the tin awning that covered part of the loading bay—”and when I looked up, that girl of yours was flying at me with her gun over her head. I might have got my gun out, I don’t know, but I don’t have it now. She landed on me and musta bopped me in the face, and that’s all she wrote.”

  “Poverty,” I muttered.

  “Damn right. I thought you had better friends.”

  “I’ll make it up to you, but I gotta catch her before she does something stupid.”

  “This ain’t?” he demanded, pointing a finger at his bloodied mouth. “I’ll kill her if I see her.”

  I gave him his handkerchief with the blood-daubed pistol butt markings. “Just a mix-up, I’m sure. The fellow on the wall—was he tall, blond, and pretty?”

  “Naw. Big beefy guy with a jaw like a sledgehammer, smoking a cigarette. Cheap suit.”

  “You’re one to talk,” I joked, trying to keep him relaxed and talkative. “He didn’t look too surprised to see someone perched up on the awning?”

  “Nope. He musta known she was up there. They were probably in it together, the bastards.” I didn’t think so, but there was no sense telling him that. “How about that gin?”

  I handed it over. “Your funeral.”

  He swore and muttered as the alcohol burned the wound on his face, but he drank it anyway. While he was doing that, I got up to take a closer look to the fence where our mystery man was clocking Maria, Lewis, and Jurgen.

  Cigarette butts lay scattered all around, not in a pile like they would be if you were just leaning here and waiting for someone. They were Lingaes, the kind Wolfgang smoked. Maybe that didn’t mean anything on its own, but then again, maybe it did. I saw some signs of a scuffle—some of the plywood boards were cracked, like someone got shoved real hard against it. A spatter of dark red, not too much, marked the fence and the concrete at my feet. Lewis’s derby hat was on the ground, too, smashed by a heavy shoe.

  An old snub-nosed cap-and-ball revolver, the kind a soldat might carry, lay forgotten near the hat. I took it and checked; all six chambers were still full. I left it alone.

  More drops of dark red blood marked a short trail out of the alley, toward Foundry Way, but I didn’t need that clue. A longish stream of gauzy black fabric that might have once been a flounced skirt pointed me in the right direction.

  “Jurgen,” I said, approaching him again. He tried to hand me the now-bloody steel flask, and I waved it off. “You said you took Lewis’s ornithopter? You have the key for it?”

  He fished around in his trouser pocket and came up with the thing, a short brass stick with a coin-shaped handle on one end and teeth going in three directions on the other. I took it.

  “What’re you gonna do?”

  “Gonna go after ‘em, I suppose.”

  “You know how to fly that thing?” he asked, dubious.

  I shrugged. “How hard can it be?”

  * * *

  Flying an ornithopter was plenty hard, as it turned out. The tri-forked keyhole that unlocked everything was easy enough to find. The hand-cranked distillate compression engine was self-explanatory. But the damned thing floated a meter off the deck when at rest, and I wasn’t exactly tall and limber. Only the thought of Jurgen picking Lewis up like a toddler to put him aboard made the ordeal of mounting it even halfway funny.

  I understood how to work the machine, more or less, from having devoured magazine articles and technical manuals and the occasional joyride when I was younger and stupider. A pair of handlebars sat forward from the seat, and you pulled them backward to climb, and pushed them forward to dive, and leaned left and right to turn the thing. A collective pitch lever sat under the handlebars on the left side, and controlled your up-and-down movement. Tilting the foot pedals left and right controlled the machine’s yaw, and tilting them forward or backward would make you go faster or slower.

  Easy as pie.

  Lewis had named this ornithopter Reciprocity. It might have had something to do with old favors he owed Donatella, might have said something about why he still served at Hendrik’s pleasure. It was a weird name, anyway—most people named their ornithopters after an old lover or some vicious creature, or a graceful one. Felix called his machine Keizerlibel, which meant “dragonfly” in the old language, and Wolfgang called his Mantikor, which was some kind of tough-as-nails mythical beast I couldn’t remember.

  Both of them were slicker rigs than Reciprocity, slicker than nearly any two-seater on the market. If Wolfgang was flying after either Lewis or Maria or both, they would be damn hard-pressed to get away. And I would be damn hard-pressed to catch up to Mantikor. Which meant I had better get the lead out.

  I eased Reciprocity ten meters off the deck, kicked on the signaling spotlight, and pointed it at the ground. Jurgen was easy enough to spot—I could see him still sitting on the ground, looking up at me, my flask flashing in his hand. Maria’s trail of discarded clothes pointed east, toward the Pestle, the working-class district full of small houses and modest apartments where I grew up. The Spray glittered and put on a hell of a show off to the south: Arodd was a slim crescent in the northern sky, but Kaiaa was full and bright. Orange luminescent paint on aerostat cables warned flyers away with bars of light. There was very little traffic at my altitude, which improved my chances of not killing myself. I nudged the pedals forward.

  It took only seconds to lose sight of Maria’s trail, but another flyer hovered maybe fifty meters in front of me and five below. At this distance, I could see a smudge of blond hair fluttering in the wind, which told me Felix was flying, not Wolfgang. It was hard to tell, but it seemed like he was looking to the streets for something or someone. I inched Reciprocity closer, hoping he wouldn’t decide to glance up.

  When I posted up about twenty meters astern of Felix, I saw that we were definitely in the Archuleta Heights neighborhood. On one corner I saw Margot’s Deli, and down the block was the Pennywise Odeon. Two blocks over from there was Archuleta Park. It was a neighborhood of quiet, clean streets and tidy houses. No one here was rich, but folks were generally safe and happy. The neighborhood was also firmly in Lange hands.

  It had been a vision of Donatella’s, a grand experiment. Instead of terrorizing a neighborhood and flooding it with black market booze and brothels and everything else, the idea was to invest heavily in all the legitimate businesses and provide stability. She donated to the local churches, bought empty lots and built parks, purchased a few well-placed cops and other civil servants. She even set up scholarship funds for the very brightest of the kids, and “internships” for youth who weren’t so good in school but had other redeeming qualities. Soldaten like Jurgen Penders and Sleepy Jeanne came out of places like Archuleta Heights. Donatella didn’t do all this out of the kindness of her heart, of course. Lange received the loyalty of the neighborhood, which was something difficult to measure in guilders and cents. Lange was also able to buy certain homes at rock-bottom prices, mark them as “under renovation,” and use them as safe houses.

  If Lewis was leading my brother and Maria on a merry chase through the Lower Terrace and ended up in this neighborhood, then he would head for one of those houses.

  There was no chance of hidi
ng from Felix if I went down there, so I thought I’d go have a little chat with the man. When I dove past his position, I didn’t quite hear whatever he shouted at me, so I pulled up and around, climbed too far, and dove again. I did this little dance a couple more times before I figured out how to pull up even with him and stay put.

  “Well, Kaeri,” he called to me as he slid his flyer closer to me, a precise one-half meter at a time, “what a charming bit of aerobatics. You’ve picked a lovely summer’s evening to come a-flying. Is there some way I can help you?”

  “You might need help more than I do, Felix,” I called back, not trusting my ability to nudge Reciprocity a small distance away.

  “My, my! Have you turned over a new leaf? Decided to fight for the good guys, have we?” He smiled when he said it, so I guessed I was supposed to think he was joking.

  “That’ll do,” I said, and he stopped two meters away or so—too close for comfort, but close enough to talk without shouting. The ‘thopters weren’t exactly noisy—just a quiet sort of hum from the magnets spinning, creaking from the control rods and wires, and a rumbling mutter from the distillate compression engines. “That’s not a good question right now. Did you want my help or not?”

  “What makes you think I need your help?” he asked, still smiling. He looked down, pointing his more powerful searchlight into the streets below.

  “You’re looking for Wolfgang. He’s chasing trouble, or trouble is chasing him. I bet it’s both.”

  “Oh?” he replied, distracted and stiffly polite. “Do tell.”

  “I figure it this way: You and Wolfgang are staking out Madill—you up front, him out back. You see Kasper come in, and later Lewis does. Lewis comes out the back, and maybe Wolfgang wants to talk to him about the dingus, and then Maria surprises them both. Anyway, there’s a scuffle, and things get rough between Maria and Wolfgang. Reckon Lewis gets loose and legs it. Wolfje chases him, and Maria chases them both. You get wind of the tumble, get on that heap, and start flying after them. You track ‘em this far, but you’re not sure where to look now.”

  The perpetually amused smile on Felix’s face flickered. “How astute.”

  “Thanks. I try.”

  “So how do you propose to help me?” he asked, his gaze returning to me. “More importantly, why?”

  “I’ll keep the why to myself, thanks, but the how is like this: You’re gonna follow me. There’s a couple houses where Lewis might go. I’ll signal you when I see him. I’ll park in the back garden, and you’ll stay across the street, hidden-like. I’m gonna go in and wait for them, get everyone to play nice. I’m gonna walk away with Maria and the dingus, and Wolfgang walks out with Lewis in custody. Everyone gets something they want.”

  He thought this over with a face like a mouthful of castor oil. “I’m amenable. I can’t say if Wolfgang will be.”

  I shrugged. “I’ll manage that piece. You coming?”

  Felix still looked like he didn’t like it even a little bit, but a little of the good humor returned to his voice. “Lay on, brave aviator.”

  Felix stayed fifteen, twenty meters behind me and kept his head on a swivel. I expected that if he somehow saw the three of them before I did, he’d bolt from the half-baked agreement we’d just made. That was all right. Chances were pretty good that things would get ugly in a very short while, even if I made it to a safe house before Lewis did. Felix would have to back Wolfgang’s play if things went pear-shaped.

  We skimmed rooftops and dodged aerostat cables. Even with everything else I had to keep an eye on, I noticed that this flying business was getting a little easier. We flew parallel to Archuleta Boulevard, the main thoroughfare of the neighborhood, full of shops that were mostly closed for the night, and a few restaurants and theaters that were still open. I looked to the houses one block to north, and missed Lewis dashing out of an alley next to the Pennywise Odeon.

  Felix called out and pointed urgently to the street. “Kaeri, let’s go!”

  “Not yet,” I yelled back. “Just keep eyes on ‘em for a minute.”

  He nodded reluctantly and kept station with me as I slowed to a hover. It turned out discretion wasn’t something we needed to worry about much.

  Lewis was running faster than I thought a ladoni could run, his child-tiny body weaving and ducking between late-evening pedestrians and food vendor carts. Seconds later, my brother came barreling out of the same alley with his meter-wide shoulders, his hat still somehow on his head. Hardly slowing as he emerged from the alley, he jumped, grabbed the lamppost, and slung himself around the thing with whip-crack agility. He landed at a run and kept going. I knew that move. He’d taught me that one when we were kids and got along better.

  Maria followed immediately after and seemed to see Wolfje’s little trick with the lamppost. She thought better of trying it and took the corner a little slower, a little wider. She caught up to him, though; within seconds her hand was just out of reaching distance from his collar. Maria wasn’t stupid. What could she do if she got ahold of him besides get thrown to the ground or shot?

  Pedestrians got in Wolfgang’s way and got battered aside for their trouble. He hollered things and waved, and other people made a hole for him. Maria stayed in his wake, which was a bright move. No one else got in their way.

  Lewis used a brief opening in traffic to cross the street at a dead run. Wolfje and Maria followed, eliciting curses and car horns that I could hear from my perch up in the sky. The three of them made their way north, through the residential streets I’d been scanning a few seconds before. The only safe house within running distance of here was about four blocks up and two over. I beckoned to Felix, and he followed me.

  The chase was getting close; Wolfje stayed just out of Maria’s reach, and Lewis was no more than a few steps in front of Wolfje. Lewis crossed a street, and an open-top car pulled up to the intersection directly after—right in Wolfje’s and Maria’s path.

  The driver braked hard and leaned on his horn. Wolfje struck the hood of the engine compartment, rolled over the heap with his shoulders, and landed on the other side. He only stumbled a little, then kept on running after Lewis. Maria had a split second more warning, but couldn’t stop her headlong run. She stepped one foot onto the running board, the other on top of the door, and leaped over the car, her arms and legs swimming through the air. The driver slunk down in his seat to avoid Maria’s milling, kicking feet.

  She landed hard but kept running, now with a distinct limp. Wolfgang ran awkwardly, too, holding on to one elbow. Some ten meters ahead, Lewis was running upright, but he was slowing and clutching his chest.

  “Isn’t that something?” I asked no one in particular.

  “Your girl is spectacular,” Felix replied, his machine now kissing distance from mine.

  I looked at him. “She isn’t my girl.”

  “Not yet,” he said, sidelong and smirking.

  “Come on, gorgeous. We need to get to the house before they do. Remember, you find a bush to lurk in while I sneak in the back door.”

  “If you insist. Usually the back door is my responsibility, and lurking in bushes is yours.”

  I grimaced. “Follow me.”

  Chapter 11

  Landing Reciprocity in the safe house’s back garden, in the dark, while in a hurry, wasn’t any sort of picnic. I managed it without breaking any bones. The heap settled down to within half a meter of the deck, and I shut it down. The compression engine coughed, sputtered, and sighed to a halt, and the magnets realigned themselves to sit atop the little gem of spraystone. I hopped down, and the machine bobbed gently with the sudden absence of my weight.

  I got to the back door, fiddled the lock, tiptoed inside the kitchen, and closed the door quietly behind me. When I turned around again, Mevrouw Penders and a double-barreled coach gun greeted me. I made a ridiculous squeaking noise and raised my hands.

  “Whoever you are, you ain’t so sneaky as you thought. Old ladies sleep light, and that flying contraption ma
de noise enough to wake the dead.”

  “Mevrouw,” I began.

  “You picked the wrong house to burgle, you hear me? This is a nice neighborhood.”

  “Effie,” I tried again, louder.

  The tiny woman tilted her head, and the gun dipped an inch or so. “Kaeri? Kaeri Hawen? Say something else. I can’t see you too good.”

  “It’s me, Mevrouw Effie. I’m sorry to wake you.”

  “Oh, Kaeri. I nearly cut you in half,” she reproached. “And how is everything?”

  I smiled a little. “We persevere through hard times.”

  Satisfied with the coded response, Effie Penders pointed her shotgun at the floor and took her finger away from the triggers. “Ludo came around just after dinner tonight to tell me to expect Lange company tonight, but he didn’t say it was you. You’re a little early. I’ll just put a light on and some tea.”

  “No, Effie,” I said, laying a hand on her elbow and guiding her gently from the kitchen, dancing around the swinging barrels of her cannon. “I don’t know what Ludo was talking about, but trouble is coming. I’m sorry that it’s coming here, but it’s coming anyway.”

  “Trouble? Is it Jurgen?”

  “Jurgen is fine.” It was mostly true. Bruised pride and a knocked-out tooth wasn’t something a tough old bird like Effie was going to fret over. “Other trouble is coming, and it may get bad. I’d like it a lot if you were in the cellar.”

  “To hell with that, young lady!” she said, yanking her arm out of my grasp.

  “Please, Mevrouw Effie, I insist. There’s one or two trade regulators, is the thing.”

  “Trade regulators? Ludo didn’t say anything about that, either, the old pirate. Regulators, and I haven’t cleaned this place since yesterday!”

  I held her free hand with both of mine. “Effie, I promise you these men will have other things on their minds.”

  “Oh, fine. You can greet them, then. But I won’t go to the cellar like some criminal in my own house. I’m going back to bed.”